


Can We Start The Fall? (Does It Really Matter At All?)

by nothingwithoutyouxo



Category: Rise (TV 2018)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Before Episode 7, Developing Friendships, M/M, sort of canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 08:07:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14666889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingwithoutyouxo/pseuds/nothingwithoutyouxo
Summary: Maashous hadn’t spoken to Jeremy much at all, but he didn’t seem to be someone that had to isolate himself from the rest of the group. He was usually right up there with them, laughing with Jolene and Clark, but that didn’t seem to be the case today. Jeremy seemed more uncomfortable than Maashous had ever seen him, and he took that as an indication that he might have needed some cheering up.(Or: Maashous and Lilette team up to help with the Simon/Jeremy situation)





	Can We Start The Fall? (Does It Really Matter At All?)

**Author's Note:**

> This started because I wanted Jeremy and Maashous to talk and have a scene together, and then I added Lilette in because I love her and then it somehow became this. Also, the timeline is a bit of a mess, I guess. Sorry about that. In any case, I hope guys like it!
> 
> Title is from Molecules by Hayley Kiyoko. Also this is for Hannah because they're great.

Maashous wondered briefly, if this scene would ever work. Lou was so insistent that it was the absolute most vital scene in the whole show and yet they’d never been able to get a full run through of it. They had barely a week until they opened and he was pretty sure that they should have been able to do a full run through of the show by now. The whole show, not just one scene. If they couldn’t even do one scene then how were they supposed to do the whole show? He shrugged the thought away and focused instead on the lighting cues he was currently working on. Since they couldn’t get passed the first minute of the scene, he could focus on planning out the rest of the show instead. He needed all the transitions to be as smooth as he could make them.

 

He looked up, once again when Robbie was called to a stop. Maashous wasn’t sure if this was more painful for him, since he had to keep running the same lines, or them, since they all had to hear him deadpan the same lines. He wondered how bored Lilette and Michael were of sitting in the same spot. He wouldn’t blame them if they were, he was sure that the rest of the group was. Usually the rest of the group would stay up the front, scatter themselves among the first few rows of seating and whisper amongst each other. There’d never been an instance of any of them, and especially of just one of them, hovering around up where he was. Maashous hadn’t spoken to Jeremy much at all, but he didn’t seem to be someone that had to isolate himself from the rest of the group. He was usually right up there with them, laughing with Jolene and Clark, but that didn’t seem to be the case today.

 

Jeremy seemed more uncomfortable than Maashous had ever seen him, and he took that as an indication that he might have needed some cheering up. Or at the very least, someone to talk to. Maashous looked back towards the stage. Yeah, this was going to be a while.

 

“Are you ok?” he asked.

 

Jeremy startled, obviously not expecting anyone to talk to him all the way back here. He looked between Masshous, the stage and the floor. “Uh,” he muttered.

 

Hesitation was definitely all the answer that he needed. “Do you know anything about lighting cues?”

 

Jeremy looked over at him, confused at the question. “A little. Why?”

 

He shrugged. “I think I need a second opinion on something.”

 

Jeremy nodded, shoved his phone in his pocket and stood up, making his way over to Maashous slowly. “I guess I can try to help,” he said.

 

Maashous smiled at him and Jeremy sort of tried to smile back. Maashous started talking absently about what he was working on. He watched as Jeremy’s eyes flicked between the notebook they were standing over and the stage. At least, he thought it had been the stage, but Maashous realised that he was staring at the rest of the group, and one of them in particular. As he followed Jeremy’s line of sight he noticed Simon. Simon who was sitting with an incredibly happy Annabelle. _Oh_ , he thought.

 

“So what happened between you and Simon?” he asked.

 

Jeremy flinched next to him and Maashous immediately wanted to apologise.

 

“Sorry, I -”

 

“No, Maashous. It’s fine. You don’t have to apologise. I just -” he stopped, ran a hand over his face and Maashous realised just how _tired_ he looked. Jeremy looked up at Maashous again and shrugged. “A lot happened between me and Simon, and yet nothing did too. It’s -”

 

“Weird?”

 

“Yeah. Really weird.”

 

Maashous paused for a moment. Robbie stopped his lines again and he wondered how much longer Lou could hold off without snapping. “Do you need to talk about it?”

 

Jeremy looked back at him. He could tell that Maashous knew he’d been looking at Simon again and really he just wanted to rip his eyes out of his head so that he would stop doing that. “I kissed him,” he said.

 

Maashous nodded.

 

Jeremy was expecting him to ask questions or at least have something to say but he didn’t. He wasn’t sure if Maashous wanted him to elaborate or not but he pulled at his hair instead, unintentionally making it stick up on one side.

 

“Guess it didn’t go so well then?” Maashous muttered, looking over at how Annabelle was smiling at Simon. This was far more complicated than he realised initially, and definitely far more so than it should have been.

 

“I didn’t know that he was with her.”

 

He didn’t seem jealous or angry at Annabelle. Maashous wasn’t sure why he’d expected him to be. “I’m not accusing you of anything,” he clarified.

 

“I thought he liked me.”

 

Hopelessness was something that Maashous was incredibly familiar with. Not in the same circumstances, but he understood exactly how Jeremy was feeling, and it was a truly horrible thing to feel. He looked over at Simon and Annabelle again, and the more that he thought about it, the more that he realised that Simon didn’t seem to be too happy either. He just hoped that meant there could be some fixing this.

 

The two of them startled when Lou yelled something at the front. Something about stopping and Maashous almost felt guilty about the sigh of relief that captured the room. They were switching scenes. Jeremy seemed to realise what to before he did. He stiffened next to him and sighed when Lou called his and Simon’s names.

 

“Good luck on those lighting cues,” he said.

 

“I’m sorry,” Maashous replied.

 

He shrugged. “Don’t be.”

 

***

 

As painful as trying to run through the graveyard scene could be, Lilette was sure that this was worse. This was much worse. As frustrating as it was to have to sit in place while Lou desperately tried to motivate Robbie to _say_ his lines without sounded dead himself, having to watch Simon stumble through the vineyard scene with an unresponsive Jeremy was definitely more painful. She could hear Lou muttering something to Tracey behind her, and while she couldn’t make out exactly what it was they were saying, she was sure it was something along the lines of “What happened to them?” Lilette thought that she was starting to realise what the answer to that question was. She excused herself from the conversation that she was no longer in - it had fallen flat the second Simon and Jeremy had started their scene - and made her way down the aisle. She paused next to Maashous and watched as he skimmed a page he was reading, muttering to himself about blue, green and red.

 

Lilette was incredibly aware that she’d barely spoken to Maashous before, but when Jeremy had been ushered onto the stage she noticed that he came from all the way back here instead of where he usually sat with everyone else. She gathered that meant that Maashous must have known something about what was happening between the two of them, and Lilette wanted someone to help talk this out with.

 

“Hi,” she said.

 

Maashous startled next to her and she instantly rushed to apologise.

 

“Sorry - I didn’t meant to-”

 

“No, that’s ok,” he smiled at her. “People don’t usually talk to me up here. I just wasn’t expecting it.”

 

She tried to return his smile, but she could tell that he didn’t buy it.

 

His eyes flicked to the stage and back. “Painful, isn’t it?”

 

She nodded, closed her eyes for a moment.

 

“Simon hasn’t talked to you about it yet?” he asked.

 

“Simon hasn’t talked to me at all recently. Not really.”

 

Maashous picked up immediately that she seemed upset by that. Of course, she would have been. Maashous knew that Lilette and Simon had been friends forever. He was shocked that she didn’t have any clue what was happening. “You saw Jeremy talking to me and thought that I would have some answers for you,” he said.

 

It wasn’t a question, but Lilette nodded anyway. “Not that I wouldn’t want to talk to you anyway -“ she started.  

 

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “What do you think happened?”

 

Lilette wasn’t expecting the question. She didn’t even know if she had an answer to it. “He didn’t tell me about Annabelle,” she said instead.

 

“Really?”

 

She shook her head. “He didn’t tell me about any of it. I don’t know why.”

 

“Has he seemed … off to you lately?”

 

“A little. Why?”

 

Maashous shrugged. “Do you think he’s hiding something from you?”

 

Lilette thought about that for a moment. There’d never been a reason for the two of them to keep secrets from each other. She had no idea why that would start now. “I guess he must be,” she said.

 

“They kissed.”

 

“What?”

 

“Jeremy and Simon. The other day, I think. He didn’t go into detail but, uh, that’s what happened, I guess,” he shrugged.

 

She didn’t know why she was surprised by that. It made sense, she supposed. Simon hiding feelings for Jeremy made absolute sense to her. Especially considering …

 

“Oh no,” she muttered.

 

She saw Maashous look up at her out of the corner of her eye, but he didn’t say anything.

 

“Simon’s dad … if he finds out …” she trailed off.

 

Maashous didn’t need to ask what would happen if Simon’s dad found out about his son probably being gay. He could see it written all over Lilette’s face. This must have been the most complicated thing to ever shake their little group. “Simon’s family is religious, right?”

 

She nodded, looking more panicked than he’d ever seen her. “They’re Catholic,” she said.

 

“Oh, shit.”

 

***

 

After talking with Lilette, Maashous realised that he wanted to help in any way that he could. The issue being that it would have to wait until the morning, meaning that another day would have passed without everything being resolved. He was trying to convince himself that the resolution would be worth it, but when he found Jeremy in a hallway on the way to his first class, he seemed just as upset as the day before. Maashous wasn’t sure how to approach this situation. He didn’t want to involve himself in other people’s lives if they didn’t want him there. He wasn’t friends with Jeremy or Simon, or even Lilette, and he didn’t have any obligation to them in that sense. He just wanted everything to be ok again. The hallways were always busy enough that you could successfully hide a quiet conversation within them. That he knew, so he wouldn’t have to worry about other people hearing this.

 

“Hey,” he said, and smiled when Jeremy looked up at him.

 

As he did so, Maashous immediately noticed just how tired he looked. He wondered briefly if Jeremy had been sleeping at all lately. “Hey,” he replied, returning the smile for a split second.

 

Maashous was trying to convince himself that this wasn’t prying. It was helping. He was trying to help.

 

“You seem worried,” Jeremy laughed, before he could say anything.

 

“I guess I am.”

 

“You have no reason to be, Maashous. I’m fine. Really.”

 

Maashous was responding before he realised it. “You didn’t seem fine at rehearsal yesterday and you don’t seem fine now.”

 

Jeremy looked at him for a moment. He seemed surprised to be called out like this. “There’s nothing either of us can do about it.”

 

“Have you tried talking to him?”

 

Jeremy shook his head, stared intently at the ground. “I don’t think he really wants to talk to me. And I … sort of, you know … pushed him away …” he trailed off.

 

“Why would you do that?”

 

Jeremy looked up at him again, and for a moment all Maashous could see was just how helpless he seemed to be. “It was just too much.”

 

Maashous had no idea what he could say to help this situation, so he just went with what he felt. “I think this can be fixed.”

 

He just shrugged in response.

 

“When the two of you kissed, did he say anything to you?”

 

“He asked me to back off and I did. Maashous, I know you mean well but -”

 

“But did he tell you why?” he pressed. If everything that Lilette had told him was true, and he was sure that it must have been, then Simon had a very good reason to try and push Jeremy away. At least, in his own head it would seem like the only thing he could do in his situation.

 

“I mean, it would have been nice but he’s not required to, I guess.”

 

Maashous nodded. He was making notes of all of this in his head. This was all stuff that he could tell Lilette later. Maashous patted Jeremy’s shoulder absently as the bell rang overhead. “Just think about it,” he said. “You don’t have to hurt like this.”

 

Jeremy didn’t ask how Maashous could tell that he was hurting as he walked away. He had a feeling that Maashous would be able to sense that in anyone. Maybe that was the real tragedy of the situation. Jeremy really didn’t want people to start _worrying_ about him. Especially people like Maashous, who he was sure had enough to worry about already.

 

***

 

Simon had been considerably quieter than usual during lunch that day, and it was really starting to grain on Lilette. It would have been reasonable, she supposed, if he were pining after someone, but he hadn’t looked up from his lunch tray the entire time, and he’d barely touched his food. She felt her worry continue to twist inside her and she knew that she had to say _something_. This wasn’t like Simon. He hadn’t been himself in weeks.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me about Annabelle?” she asked.

 

Simon startled next to her, though if it was because she spoke or the question itself she couldn’t tell. “What do you mean?”

 

Lilette noticed immediately that he’d gone very still, and that one of his hands was clenched into a fist in his lap. None of this seemed to be adding up. It wasn’t how he normally acted at all. He was never defensive when he was with her. “Simon, why are you hiding so much from me?”

 

“I - I didn’t tell you about Annabelle because … I wanted to … see how it went first, ok? We’ve only been on, like, a few dates and I just wanted to have something to tell you when I did.”

 

“A few dates is already a lot to talk about,” she pressed.

 

He closed his eyes and she could tell that he was battling with something. There was so much going on inside his head, and there’d never been a case before that he couldn’t tell her about it.

 

“Why don’t you talk to me?” she asked. It was something that she didn’t think she’d ever have to ask him of all people. She wondered if he could tell how much it hurt her.

 

He sighed and turned towards her. “Ok, fine. I’ll talk,” he said, but she didn’t think that he really meant it. “Annabelle and I … we’re going to be taking things to the next level.”

 

“What?”

 

“I, um, I asked her earlier and she said that’s what she wanted so that’s what we’re doing.” He nodded, as if he was trying to convince himself as well as her.

 

“Simon, you said you’ve only gone a few dates with her,” she reminded.

 

“So? What does that have to do with anything?”

 

Lilette looked at him, and she realised that she could barely recognise her own best friend. She reached for him, taking his hands gently and was grateful that he didn’t stop her. There was one question that was plaguing her, something that she so desperately needed to ask him. “Simon, why are you trying to force yourself to be something that you’re not?” she asked.

 

He pulled away from her far too abruptly. His defences were in full force. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

 

Lilette wanted to grab onto him and shake him. She wanted him to see what she did, that he was hurting himself.

 

“I thought that you of all people, Lilette, would be happy for me,” he added, and then he stood up and walked away.

 

Lilette wanted to cry, she really did, but there were far too many people around for that. She felt someone sit next to her and turned.

 

“He has a habit of doing that, doesn’t he?” Jeremy muttered, not quite looking at her. “Hurting people.”

 

She wanted to cry so badly, but she took a deep breath instead. “Will you talk to me about it?” she asked. “About what he did, whatever happened between you two?”

 

Jeremy smiled faintly. He twisted his hands together on top of the table and then looked up at her. “He didn’t do anything. It was all me.”

 

“I don’t know if I believe that,” she said.

 

He shook his head. “I, uh, I kissed him. The other day. In the car park.”

 

“You - what?”

 

“It was a horrible decision in hindsight. It was … the worst thing I could have done.”

 

Lilette looked at him for a moment. He wasn’t lying. That much she could tell. “You really think that?”

 

“Think what?”

 

“That it was the worst thing you could have done?”

 

Jeremy sighed. He pulled at his hair absently and avoided looking at her. “I shouldn’t have put him in that position. I really - I didn’t think it through.”

 

“I highly doubt you would do something like that without thinking it through.”

 

He looked up at her and wondered how she could see through him so easily. “I didn’t know about Annabelle,” he said.

 

“Jeremy, you’re deflecting. You wanted to kiss him, didn’t you?”

 

He swallowed, his eyes darting around to avoid landed on her. “Uh -”

 

That was all the answer she needed. “I don’t think you would have done something like that unless you were sure that it was what he wanted too,” she continued.

 

He couldn’t dispute that and he knew that she could tell. As he looked up at Lilette again, she was smirking, just a little. “Really?”

 

She bit down on her lip for a moment. “Sorry,” she apologised. “My point is that you didn’t just kiss him out of nowhere.”

 

“So?”

 

“So, it can’t be the worst thing you could have done.”

 

He guessed, that she was right. “I want him to be honest with himself,” he admitted. “That’s what I told him before I -” he paused.

 

Lilette nodded, knowing what he meant. “He’s not being honest,” she said.

 

“I know. I’m really -”

 

“Worried?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Me too.”

 

The two of them paused for a moment. Jeremy continued to twist his hands together and Lilette could tell that he was building up to telling her something, so she waited.

 

“Do you think that I did this?” he asked.

 

She looked at him for a moment, not entirely sure what he meant by that.

 

“Everything that Simon’s going through. Do you think I caused it?”

 

 _Oh, Jeremy_ . “Of course you didn't,” she replied. “This was going to happen for him at some point. None of it was your _fault_.”

 

He nodded. “Thank you, Lilette” he muttered.

 

“You don’t have to thank me.”

 

***

 

As the troupe all filtered into rehearsal, Jeremy decided that he was going to tap into some courage that he had stored up. Something that he didn’t think he’d be able to use, but he just wanted to talk to Simon. He didn’t care if it was only for a second before he was brushed off again. Jeremy was drawn to Simon and he hadn’t found a reason to hate that yet.

 

“Simon, can I talk to you?” he asked, voice much quieter than he’d meant it to be.

 

As Simon looked up at him, Jeremy felt something spark within him. It was his usual Simon-related feeling of elation, and when Simon didn’t respond negatively (or at all), he used it to propel him forward.

 

“I wanted to apologise,” he said.

 

“Jeremy -”

 

“No, please, let me finish.”

 

Simon stopped in his tracks. He didn’t say anything else, but he nodded, and Jeremy took that as a signal.

 

“I’m sorry,” he continued. “For what I did in the car park -”

 

“Jeremy, you really don’t have to do this right now,” Simon interrupted, his eyes darting around the room quickly, as if he was checking that every single person was distracted by something else.

 

Jeremy didn’t want to care about anyone else, and he supposed that that was part of the problem. “It needs saying,” he muttered. “I’m sorry for what I did and what I said to you. I didn’t know about you and Annabelle.”

 

Simon opened his mouth to respond, but Jeremy powered through.

 

“I knew that she liked you, and that should have been enough. I overstepped and that wasn’t right. I thought that you liked me too, and that something, somehow, was happening between us, and I shouldn’t have assumed that.”

 

Simon had stopped glancing around the room and now he was just looking at the boy in front of him. All that Jeremy could see was that he looked incredibly sad, and he didn’t know why. He thought apologising would help that. Maybe he’d just made things worse. If that was the case then he really needed to stop doing that. Maybe he just needed to stop talking to Simon in general.

 

“Jeremy, please don’t make this harder for me than it already is.” Simon wasn’t looking at him anymore. He was staring at the ground and Jeremy could feel himself being torn apart again.

 

“Simon -”

 

Simon shook his head, holding up a hand to stop him. “I can’t talk about this right now,” he said. “If I could then we -” he paused, squeezed his eyes shut as if he was cursing himself for that.

 

“What do you mean if you could?”

 

“Don’t -” he stopped, shook his head again and opened his eyes. “I’ll talk to you later, Jeremy. Ok?” Simon didn’t really give him a chance to answer before he was walking off towards the rest of the group.

 

All Jeremy knew was that he felt very shaken, and that he needed to find Lilette as soon as he could.

 

***

 

Rehearsal started out just the same as it always did. Most of them were talking amongst themselves. Lou and Tracey were going over some things in quiet, serious voices. He had a script in one hand and was gesturing wildly with the other while Tracey had to keep reminding him to stay calm. Jeremy made his way towards where Lilette was standing with Maashous. The two of them were laughing but as he approached them, they sobered quickly.

 

“Would it be weird to ask for a hug?” he said to both of them.

 

“Of course not,” Lilette replied, immediately pulling Jeremy into a quick hug.

 

“What did he say?” Maashous asked.

 

Jeremy didn’t ask how they knew that he’d spoken to Simon. He guessed that they could just tell somehow. He wouldn’t have been surprised is he gave off some kind of weird ‘just spoke to Simon’ energy that they could both pick up on.

 

“I apologised for … everything, I guess, but I don’t think he wanted to hear it.”

 

“I’m sorry, Jeremy,” Lilette muttered, pulling away again. “I wish things were easier.”

 

“I do too.”

 

It went very quiet for a moment. The three of them seemed unsure what to say in this situation.The room went very stale. Jeremy sighed and looked down at the rest of the group, his eyes immediately found Simon and he really wished that they hadn’t. Simon was standing away from the rest of the group with Annabelle. Far enough away that you could probably mask a conversation from them all. He didn’t even want to know what Simon was talking to her about. He didn’t want to be bitter towards Annabelle, or angry. She was his friend after all, and he couldn’t blame her for liking Simon. He just wished it was all different.

 

The whole troupe startled when Annabelle yelled something rather loudly and then shoved at Simon before running towards backstage. Jeremy watched as Simon looked up at the ceiling for a moment, as if he were looking for answers. Maybe he was praying or something.

 

“Did he just -” Lilette said, breaking off as Jolene, Lexi and Harmony ran after Annabelle.

 

“I think he did,” Maashous mused.

 

Jeremy looked over at them. “What?”

 

“I’m sorry. I need to go and see if he’s ok,” Lilette muttered, before starting towards Simon, who had slumped in one of the seats farthest away from the others.

 

Jeremy felt a hand rest against his shoulder and looked up at Maashous.

 

“I think you might still have a chance,” he said.

 

Jeremy just looked at him, confused.

 

“I think Simon just broke up with Annabelle,” he clarified.

 

Jeremy looked around him, at all the chaos that was starting to ensue. Lou asked everyone what the hell was happening, loud enough for them all to hear, and the rest of the troupe all started talking at once. Jeremy looked over at Simon, who Lilette was consoling on one side of the room. He didn’t want this, he realised. Not like this, at least. But he wasn’t sure if there was another way. Someone was always going to get hurt. He just hadn’t wanted it to be Annabelle, and especially not Simon. He’d been fine carrying that burden on his own.

 

“Jeremy, are you ok?” Maashous asked him.

 

He shook his head to try and clear it. “I don’t know,” he answered.

**Author's Note:**

> (I left the ending really open because Simon is dealing with a lot of internalised homophobia and other stuff and he's Not Quite Ready to date anyone yet in my personal opinion lmao. You can be mad but I think that's the truth right now in this moment. He needs time to grow)
> 
> If you want to yell with me about how upsetting this show getting cancelled is you can find me over on Tumblr at potter-awakening ! (#SaveRise am I right?)


End file.
